Please give me some signal that you were
kidding on the Sam and Cokie show Sunday when you reeled off the standard
chamber of horrors propaganda on China.

1. We are not at war with China. You
appear to have fallen under the evil influence of The Weekly
Standard, which thinks we should be at war and are doing everything they
can to promote one. They provide the platform for the
military-industrial complex and the Christian Coalition, who have joined in an
attempt to provoke Beijing into a confrontation.

2. If China were guilty of the atrocities
in your catalog, you should not hesitate to demand an end to the policy of
engagement that began in the Nixon administration. We should end MFN and treat
this barbarous nation as a rogue nation and prepare for another long Cold
War.

3. There is no evidence that the central
government or any provincial government has been engaged in forcing abortions
in the past dozen years. There have occasionally been reports of local
officials in parts of China using some sort of force to prevent families from
violating the rules that require payment of a fee to exceed the childbirth
resolutions. There are thousands of western journalists roaming all over China
these days and if any of them found barbaric practices at this level, they
would be known to all of us. You must show more skepticism when the human
rights propagandists show up in your office with moth-eaten assertions based
on hearsay. If China were a closed country, we could give the wild assertions
the benefit of the doubt. It is not a closed country anymore.

4. China’s Ambassador Li, on the Jim
Lehrer "NewsHour" Monday night, flatly denied having assisted Pakistan in
developing nuclear weaponry. He pointed out that China is a signator to the
NPT and has scrupulously lived up to its international commitments. There is
no reason to disbelieve him, except for assertions that make the rounds in our
press corps without anyone being able to trace them back to a reliable source.
When you are confronted by the Weekly Standard propagandists with
these arguments, please ask for documented, reliable sources. Don’t let them
get away with: “Everyone knows China is lying, Trent.”

5. The idea that China is leasing
satellite time from American companies is being treated as evidence of
technology transfer, but it is quite the opposite. If our national security
was at stake, we should happily subsidize the Chinese leases, making it so
cheap for them that they need never attempt to spend the resources developing
their own. If they are entirely reliant on our satellites to convey
information throughout their military establishment, we could put them in the
dark with the flick of a switch.

6. There are no restrictions on
religious services in China -- as there are in many part of the
Islamic world, among our allies in Saudi Arabia for example. The only
complaint comes from Catholics who argue that China will not permit Roman
Catholic services unless the congregation in question registers with the state
and signs a declaration that it does not recognize the authority of the Holy
See. But then, Trent, the Vatican does not recognize Beijing. That will happen
soon, I think, as there are private negotiations underway and the Pope is now
considering including Hong Kong on his Papal tour next year. The attempt to
paint China as a ferocious persecutor of Christianity does not stand up to
even casual scrutiny. But then the boys at the Weekly Standard do
everything they can to cover up the truth so they can ply their evil among
unsuspecting Majority Leaders.

7. There is a rumor the CIA says the
Chinese are targeting several west coast cities with ICBMs. Ask for the source
of the rumor, Trent. China says there are no warheads on its ICBMs, which the
evil plotters quickly say does not matter, because they can be armed in a few
minutes. Think of it Trent, the missiles could be targeting Shanghai and with
the turn or a few dials they could be armed and aimed at us. What in God’s
name is it worth to you as one of the most important political leaders in the
world to hear from these clowns that it makes any difference to us that China
has ICBMs. We are not at war and unless you weigh in on the side of war, we
shouldn’t worry about war with China for at least another hundred years.

8. Ambassador Li on the same Jim Lehrer
show defended the military action against the protesters at Tiananmen Square
in 1989. He argued that it was the right decision for the national government
to use force to stamp out the student uprising. It was certainly not
surprising to me at the time that the government would use force. Nor is it
surprising that the Indonesian government used force in April when 500 rioters
died while trying to bring about revolutionary change in the central
government. And didn’t you cheer when Boris Yeltsin got control of the
military and blew up the Russian White House, its parliament? I’m not saying I
approve of any of this killing, Trent. Don’t get me wrong. I am saying that
when a body of protest loses control of itself and seeks to overcome an
Establishment, it had better prepare to be wiped out. In each of these three
cases, by the way, Tiananmen, Moscow and Jakarta, the uprisings and deaths
would not have occurred if it were not for the economic instability engendered
by policies of the IMF.

9. Otherwise, I thought your performance
on Sam & Cokie was most informed. When you deal with information close to
home, Trent, your grasp of information is practically flawless. It is when you
swallow stuff that is beyond your normal experience that you mess up.